90218: She is pregnant and cannot lift up her feet to wash them when doing wudoo’

I am three months pregnant and the specialist has advised me not to lift up my feet to do wudoo’ in the sink, because this is very dangerous for me. When I am at home, I do wudoo’ in the bath, but I work and there is no way that I can wash my feet at work except by lifting them up to the sink.
My question is as follows: Is it haraam for me to wipe my feet on the top only as a temporary solution until I give birth, in sha Allaah?.

Published Date: 2006-05-09

Praise be to Allaah.

Washing the
feet is one of the obligatory parts of wudoo’, without which it is not
valid, according to the consensus of the companions of the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). This has been discussed in the
answer to question no. 69761.

You can ward
off hardship from yourself by doing one of two things:

1 – Pour
water over your feet with a cup or your hand, etc, without lifting them up.
If the water reaches the entire foot then you have washed them as required,
and your purification is valid. You do not have to rub them with your hand.

Al-Nawawi
(may Allaah have mercy on him) said: Our view is that rubbing the parts of
the body when doing ghusl and wudoo’ is sunnah and is not obligatory, If he
pours water over it and does not wipe it with his hand, or he immerses it in
a large amount of water, that is sufficient and his wudoo’ and ghusl are
valid. This is the view of all the scholars except Maalik and al-Muzani, who
stipulated that this is a condition of ghusl and wudoo’ being valid. End
quote from al-Majmoo’ (2/214)

2 – You can
do wudoo’ at home and wash your feet, then put on socks. Then if you want to
do wudoo’ after that, it is sufficient to wipe over the socks, for 24 hours,
so long as you stay in the same city, and for 72 hours if you are
travelling.

For more
information on the conditions of wiping over the socks, please see question
no. 9640 and
8186.